Railway car classification yard apparatus



April 5, 1966 w. A. ROBISON, JR 3,244,874

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RAILWAY CAR CLASSIFICATION YARD APPARATUS 19 Sheets-Sheet 10 OriginalFiled April 14, 1958 April 5, 1966 w. A. ROBISON, JR 3,244,874

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RAILWAY CAR CLASSIFICATION YARD APPARATUS Original Filed April 14, 195819 Sheets-Sheet 19 I I I I I 227, I 557, I 5 5.56, i d I 549, I H 5 W Hg b INVENQT/O R. I [29 [9. BY 0 @8012 United States Patent 0 M 3,244,874RAILWAY CAR (ILASSIFICATEON YARD APPARATUS William A. Rohison, .lr.,Pittsburgh, Pa, assignor to Westinghouse Air Brake Company, Wilmerding,Pan, a corporation of Pennsylvania Original application Apr. 14, 1958,Ser. No. 728,230, new Patent No. 3,162,405, dated Dec. 22, 1964. Dividedand this application Aug. 17, 1961, Ser. No. 132,053

11 Claims. (Cl. 24-6-4) My invention relates to an information handlingsystem, and in particular to apparatus for the storage and transfer ofinformation for use in automatic control or indication.

The present application is a division of my copending application forLetters Patent of the United States, Serial No. 728,230, filed April 14,1958 for Information Handling System, now Patent No. 3,162,405, issuedDecember 22, 1964.

In many control and indication problems, input data to be processed forthe production of control or indication signals is not available at thetime when it is required for use, or many items of information which areobtained at different times must be processed simultaneously. Forexample, in copcnding application for Letters Patent of the UnitedStates, Serial No. 676,730, filed August 7, 1957, by David P.Fitzsimmons and William A. Robison, Jr. for Automatic Control System forRailway Classification Yards, which is assigned to the assignee of mypresent application, a system is disclosed for automatically routingcuts of one or more cars to selected storage track destinations, whileat the same time controlling the speed at which they couple withpreceding cars on the storage tracks. In such a system, the groupretarder offers the last opportunity for the correction of the speed ofeach cut of cars before it reaches the designated body track.Accordingly, the problem of selecting the leaving speed of a cut of carsfrom a group retarder so that it will couple with the preceding cars onthe designated body track at a safe speed is essentially one ofpredicting the performance of the cut from the point at which it leavesthe group retarder to the point of coupling. This distance traversed byeach cut consists of a curved portion including one or more switches,and a tangent portion which is longer or shorter in accordance with thefullness of the body track to which the cut is directed. Since thecontrol of the speed of the cut in the group retarder must beaccomplished before the cut leaves the group retarder, there areprovided suitable curved and tangent measuring sections ahead of theseretarders for measuring the rolling resistances on curved and tangenttrack, and a computer for correlating the rolling resistances on themeasuring sections with those on the tangent sections. It then becomesnecessary to supply the various measured quantities to the computer atthe proper time. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide means forstoring the measurements as they are made and transferring them to thecomputer. It is an object of my present invention to provide novelstorage and transfer apparatus for storing and transferring informationin any desired sequence.

It is a more particular object of my invention to provide means forstoring measurements of rolling resistance and transferring them to aleaving speed computer of the class disclosed in the above-mentionedcopending application.

Other objects and characteristic features of my invention will becomeapparent as the description proceeds.

In accomplishing the foregoing object of my invention, I employapparatus comprising a plurality of storage units for storing electronicvoltages, means for detecting the occupied or unoccupied condition ofthe storage units,

3,244,874 Patented Apt". 5, 1966 ICC means for selecting an unoccupiedstorage unit and applying a measured value of rolling resistance forstorage in that unit, means for developing a code identifying theselected storage unit, means for transmitting the code along the routeof a cut of cars the rolling resistance of which has been stored, andmeans for interpreting the code and interrogating the proper storageunit to select the stored value of rolling resistance pertaining to thecut when it is desired to make use of the rolling resistance measurementin calculating the desired leaving speed of the cut from the groupretarder in the selected route of the cut.

I shall describe one form of apparatus embodying my invention and shallthen point out the novel features thereof in claims.

I have illustrated an embodiment of my invention which is adapted to beemployed in a classification yard of the type disclosed in the abovecopending application Serial No, 676,730. Only those components of thesystem disclosed in said copending application which are necessary tomake my disclosure complete and to an understanding of my invention havebeen illustrated, and in several instances these components have beenillustrated in block diagram form. However, the correspondence betweenschematically illustrated components and those shown in detail in theabove-mentioned copending application will be readily apparent to thoseskilled in the art as the description proceeds.

In order to simplify the illustration of the circuits employed in myinvention, I have not shown the necessary power supplies in detail. Oneof these power supplies is a conventional source of DC. voltage havingpositive and negative terminals, connections to which are schematicallyindicated on the drawings by the reference characters B and N,respectively, associated with arrow symbols in dicating connections tothe battery terminals. The additional power supplies required are shownschematically by a control lead carried from component to component anda ground lead which is returned to a common ground as conventionallyindicated. The circuits so shown will be readily identified with thoseshown in detail in the copending application.

In the drawings,

FIG. 1 comprises a chart showing the manner in which FIGS. 2 through 19should be arranged in order to disclose in detail one embodiment of myinvention.

FIGS. 2 through 19, when arranged in the manner shown in FIG. 1,comprise a schematic wiring diagram of one embodiment of my invention.

Referring now to the drawings, I have illustrated several routes in aclassification yard. These routes are approached from a common routecomprising an entrance end including a hump and an approach tracksection AT, as shown in FIG. 2. Following approach track section AT is amaster retarder comprising two track sections MRlT and MRZT. Followingthe master retarder is a switch designated 1-8W which is provided with adetector track section 1-81. Following switch ll-8W are two trackswitches designated 1-4W and 5-8W and provided with detector tracksections liT and 58T, respectively. Following switch 1-4 are shown twogroup car retarders designated 1-2GR and 3-4GR. Retarder 1-2GR isfollowed by a track switch 1-2W provided with a detector track sectiondesignated 12T. Retarder 3-4GR is fol lowed by a track switch 3-4Wprovided with a detector track section designated 3-4T. Track switches1-8W, 1-4W, 58W, 12.W and 3-4W control the routes to storage tracks 1through 8, 1 through 4, 5 through 8, 1 and 2, and 3 and 4, respectively.

As pointed out in the above-mentioned copending application, a number oftrack sections will normally be provided between each group retarder andthe preceding

1. IN A RAILWAY CAR CLASSIFICATION YARD COMPRISING A PLURALITY OFTRAFFIC DIVERGING TRACK SWITCHES, THE COMBINATION COMPRISING, ANINFORMATION HANDLING SYSTEM INCLUDING A SERIES OF STORAGE PANELS, MEANSFOR SELECTING A DIFFERENT ONE OF THE PANELS FOR EACH CUT CARS, ENTERINGTHE YARD, MEANS FOR PRODUCING A BINARY CODE FOR IDENTIFYING EACHSELECTED PANEL, MEANS FOR TRANSFERRING EACH CODE ALONG THE ROUTE OF ITSASSOCIATED CUT OF CARS AS EACH CUT PROGRESSES THROUGH THE YARD, RELAYMEANS AT PREDETERMINED LOCATIONS ALONG THE ROUTES THROUGH SAID YARD FORINTERPRETING EACH CODE, AN ANALOG SIGNAL STORAGE UNIT IN EACH PANEL,CIRCUIT MEANS FOR ENERGIZING SAID STORGAE UNIT IN EACH ELECTED PANELWITH A SIGNAL IN ACCORDANCE WITH SPEED CONTROL INFORMATION PERTAININGTHE CUT OF CARS ASSOCIATED WITH THE SELECTED PANEL, A PLURALITY OFANALOG SIGNAL RESPONSIVE DEVICES, A PLURALITY OF CIRCUIT MEANS EACHINCLUDING CONTACTS OF THE RELAY MEANS AT ONE OF SAID PREDETERMINEDLOCATIONS AND THE SIGNAL STORAGE UNIT IN A SELECTED PANEL ASSOCIATEDWITH A CUT OF CARS FOR CONTROLLING ONE OF THE SIGNAL RESPONSIVE DEVICES,AND CIRCUITS CONTROLED BY SAID SIGNAL RESPONSIVE DEVICES, FORCONTROLLING APPARATUS IN THE YARD IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE SPEED CONTROLINFORMATION PERTAINING TO THE CUT OF CARS.